How to Feed the World?

Directed by Denis van Waerebeke, this amazing infographic video explains the reasons behind the imbalanced global food distribution and suggests solutions to the problem. Although the animation was originally made for kids aged 9-14 at an exhibition, both its illuminating content and innovative graphics are worth checking out for adults as well. I'm also reminded of a relevant documentary Food Inc. which is among the pile of DVDs I haven't found time to watch.

How to feed the world ? from Denis van Waerebeke on Vimeo.

Navel Tomato

It's the harvest time in my organic farm: tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchinis and colored peppers! Today I found this unique tomato and called it 'navel tomato'. Nature is the most fantastic designer and creator with a sense of humor. This tomato just reminds me of the heart-shaped potato in Varda's wonderful documentary The Gleaners and I, the perfect visual metaphor of the film's essence.

Holiday Taste - Italian Soda!

Almost everytime I go to Whole Foods, I pick up something new, something irresistable. Last weekend was the Pomegranate Italian Soda. The taste is far from American soda, but rather like a mix of champagne and juice, just so wonderful! It's all natural as well :)

I've already become addicted, and found that Trader Joe's and World Market also carry the product. Ian just bought me new flavors to try: Blood Orange and Orange Passion Mango. Hmmm, it's gonna be a delicious Thanksgiving!

Carl Warner's Foodscapes

How can you resist the broccoli forest, bread moutains, fruit balloons and smoked salmon sea? These amazing Foodscapes were created by London based artist Carl Warner. I wanna live in such delicious and healthy wonderlands!!
source: http://www.carlwarner.com/

Food Memories of Tokyo

This past weekend was filled with deliscious food. My parents made my favorite dumplings: lamb+wintermelon! I made sushi, although the simplest type :) Sushi actually originated as a method of preserving fish in China and Southeast Asia. It was introduced to Japan in the 7th century and transformed into the Japanese style which is as known to the world.


I can't helping recalling the wonderful food experiences in Tokyo. You can complain how expensive things are in Japan, but NOT food! We tried food at different places, ranging from 500 - 3500 Yen per person: from take-out restaurants, fast-food places to fancy restaurants, from the traditional snack stands at Asakusa market (浅草市場) to the amazing sushi bar at Tsukiji Fish Market (築地市場) - none of them let me down!

The everyday fast-food sushi would be the conveyor belt sushi (回転寿司, kaiten-zushi). It's fast, inexpensive and fun.

There's a sushi street at the famous Tsukiji Fish Market. We tried 大和寿司, recommended by locals. It had the longest line in the front and we waited for nearly an hour to get in.

We ordered sushi combination since we were still confused with all the different names. The sushi tasted extremely fresh, tender, with a slightly sweet flavor, definitely my BEST sushi experience!!

I'm also impressed with Japanese desserts. They are not too sweet or too thick, just perfect. The super tasty green tea cake, grean tea cream puff and fried ice-cream I had in Tokyo even topped my all-time favorites such as Tiramisu, Crème brûlée and Yule Log cake!

Japanese cuisine does not have as many flavors or styles as Chinese cuisine, however, the look of the food together with its serving wares, displays a deeper sense of design. Although Japan is an economically rich country, people there eat less and faster which reflects the very Japanese notion of efficiency and no-waste.

What The World Eats

Photographs by Peter Menzel from the book Hungry Planet - illustrating the weekly food consumption of 15 homes from around the world. These photos tell so much: lifestyle, culture, climate, economic condition...

Click here to see all.

CHOXIE

I usually fall in love with something everytime I go to Target. Today I was attracted by Choxie, a chocolate brand I've never seen at other stores. First, the name drew my attention since I'm always interested in any name with my last name 'xie' in it :) Second, I fall for the look: very cute and artful packages; Finally the different shapes and flavors of chocolate are just irresistable! Among them, the artisan truffle tiles seem the most charming to me. Will try them lately!

Here is the Choxie page at Target website - http://sites.target.com/site/en/supertarget/supertarget_exclusive_brands.jsp?bsection=Choxie

Also found a fun blog by a girl all about candies. Here are her comments on Choxie - http://www.typetive.com/candyblog/category/choxie/

Bubba-Gump Shrimp Co.

Finally tried Bubba-Gump Shrimp Co. in Charleston. Last year we saw the restaurant in Maui, but it was too crowded. Yes, Bubba-Gump came from the movie Forrest Gump. You can find themes of the movie everywhere in the restaurant, from the movie photos hanging on the wall, to the ping-pong peddle shaped menu (Forrest Gump plays ping pong in the movie). The most interesting invention is the two iron plate signs on the table for you to switch: if you are doing OK, just leave the blue sign saying “RUN, FORREST RUN”; if you need service, switch to the red one saying “STOP, FORREST STOP”. It is said to be the first restaurant inspired by a movie. I found it hard to believe since the idea of a movie theme restaurant is not a hard one. Perhaps from the commercial point of view, it has to be a ‘successful’ Hollywood movie in order to take place in the market or global market.

Fascinated with Hitchcock’s movie Vertigo, my trip to San Francisco was actually a movie tour of most scene locations in the film. It turned out fantastic since the tour covered most charming places in the city, also adding a romantic and mysterious atmosphere. New York, as a dream city, has more potential to offer such movie tours. The Celluloid Skyline by James Sanders explores the dream dimension of New York through a good number of movies. He depicts two New Yorks in his book: The first is a real city, an urban agglomeration of millions. The second is a mythic city, so rich in memory and association and sense of place that to people everywhere it has come to seem real: the New York of such films such as 42nd Street, Rear Window, King Kong, Dead End, The Naked City, Ghostbusters, Annie Hall, Taxi Driver, and Do the Right Thing. A dream city of the imagination, born of that most pervasive of dream media, the movies.

There is already the Sex and the City tour featuring those high-end stores and fancy restaurants in New York. While it is about spending money to imitate the lifestyle pursued in the show, a fetishized materialism at bottom. Woody Allen's Manhattan presents the very charm of New York in a most subtle and complex way, the hybrid personality of New York: the romantic, the humorous, the sensual, the melancholy… A tour of Manhattan would be a more spiritually pleasant one for me.

Art of Food

My friend's fiancee Ming has a blog dedicated to food called Angry Asian Food Critic :) Her appreciation of food was wittily put in on her blog - no one should subject to crappy food and should take care of your taste bud just like a delicate flower. And once your taste bud is happy, your tummy is happy, and then it tells your brain to puts out happy chemicals throughout your body.

One of her blog is about her memorable experience at a unique restaurant Alinea in Chicago. In this restaurant, all the food is carefully designed, cooked and presented in front of the guests. The components of each dish is nothing exotic; they are EVERYDAY food such as tomato, potato and bacon. Just look at the photos I posted here - isn't that amazing? They look to me like architectural models: the composition of forms, colors, textures. And the smell of course, if you are there. It is a true enjoyment for all your senses. I just feel tempted to design food! I'm also tempted to make the assumption that artful and healthy food would make artful and healthy body and mind :)